Ion Cristoiu, one of the most influential journalists in Romania of recent decades collaborated with the Securitate communist-era secret police, a court has ruled.
Mr. Cristoiu, who has been editor-in-chief of a number of publications in the last 30 years sued Madalin Hodor, a researcher at the National Securitate Archives in 2018 over claims that he was an informer known as “Coroiu” for the dreaded communist-era secret police.
He denied being a collaborator in court, but judges ruled against him in Nov. 2019. The Bucharest Tribunal dismissed his appeal on Oct. 22. The ruling is final.
Mr. Cristoiu, 71, was a well-known name in the media before 1989 which was largely controlled by the Communist Party. His links to the Securitate are not surprising, only the amount of time it took for them to be exposed and his fierce denials.
The case is important as it sheds light on one of the last secrets of the communist era: the fact that many former agents continued to operate at a senior level even after Nicolae Ceausescu was executed and communism ended.
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